A few years after I moved to Florida, I discovered Birkenstocks. That led to an entire series of discovery adventures in finding all kinds of footwear that is actually so comfortable my back and legs never hurt. I’ve gone to great lengths to find shoes that are not only foot friendly, but also look great. Granted, that does not usually include pumps and other high heeled styles. Nonetheless, I have a lot of shoes that look great and I can proudly say I can walk all day and nary feel a pinch.

I can hardly understand people anymore who suffer to wear shoes that look a certain way. I have a very good hairdresser friend who wears sexy shoes every day. Take those hot shoes off, though, and her twisted little feet are full of lumps and corns and other nasty foot ailments. No thanks!

Now that I am getting ready to re-enter the work force, I’ve been a little worried that I will have to give up foot comfort. I was thrilled to look around the schools where I did my teaching hours to see a lot of the teachers wearing attractive clogs and other comfy shoes.

There are several manufacturers that specialize in foot friendly shows. One of the more companies that puts out several of the more attractive and professional looking styles is Dansko shoes. They are designed to follow the natural contours of the foot and have a well-padded insole. The unique quality Dansko has is their rocker style bottoms. They afford of a kind of movement that protects your legs and feet and is ideal for people who have to stand around a lot, like teachers! I included the links for MetBoots, because they happen to have good pricing on the shoes and often times free shipping. I like to forward my readers to the deals on the net.

In an age where so many of us have actually had to endure identity theft, this next story is going to make you choke.

Right down in Sarasota, Fl a man was looking in a Blockbuster store’s dumpster for clean boxes when he came across video store were membership forms and employment applications that included names, addresses, credit card numbers and Social Security numbers.

He says that he told the store what he had found, but even so the very next day when he went after more boxes he found “credit card stuff.”

Federal and state officials said no law was broken.

Blockbuster claims they have a company policy that says “documents generated in-store, including customer information, must be destroyed when no longer kept on file.” This, according to a spokesman for Blockbuster Inc.

I guess they feel like tossing these items into a dumpster constitutes destroying them.

Think twice before providing personal info to businesses, even national chains.

As I mentioned, we have my daughter’s godparents here for a visit. I was excited about them being here in October, since the weather is usually so paradise-like. I had not been counting on the things being in the 90s here, though. It’s been flat out hot for October. We all broke into a sweat walking from the car to the salad bar place today. That was absolutely not on the itinerary. I had it in mind to show them all the best places to enjoy our perfect weather. Don’t get me wrong. The skies were still blue and the breezes fragrant. It was just a little hotter than the norm.

So, we all got to talking about some of the places in the U.S. known for balmier weather. Heat will make you dreamer about cooler frontiers. Cami brought up a mutual friend of ours who lives in Oregon. I’ve never been out there, so the conversation turned into a contest of trying to name cities and other attractions in Oregon. In the end, I think we all agreed that a visit would be nice right about now.

I’ve said it over and over that I don’t like to stay in hotels as much as I like to try to find a condo or a vacation home to rent, when I can. For about the same price, you can usually find all the comforts of home if you look hard enough. I came home and looked online and I found an entire site that lists oregon coast vacation rentals. The first place I saw on the properties page sleeps 12 and goes for less money a night than the hotel where the godparents tried to book down the road here the first night they were in town. All that and a nice, balmy northwestern autumn — it sounds blissful.

OK, so not literally, but according to Maxim Magazine, the number of divorces here is one of the factors that has made them name Tampa one of the Top 10 party cities in the nation

As much as we are known for the Bucs, the Bulls, and our sunny weather, we are also known for Ybor City, strip clubs, peep shows and lingerie shops, modeling agencies, divorces, residents’ median ages, colleges in the area, 24-hour restaurants, gaming laws and condom sales.

Miami got Maxim’s top spot. That’s no surprise to me.

I’m not thrilled with the award, personally. I think Tampa offers more in the way of tourism and our more than 800 events each year, ranging from the Gasparilla Day parades and pirate invasion to smaller events that people something to do just about every weekend of the year.

I’ve written several times that I am dealing with adult acne and that as I have grown older, I realize that my skin is as different from the skin I had in my teens as apples are to oranges. I’m relearning how to care for my skin, my hair, my body in general. I still need to wash my face, moisturize, use sunscreen and remove dead skin. Now, though, I understand the science behind beauty.

I have so much more of an understanding that my skin reflects my inner health. If I have a build up of toxins in my body, my skin reacts. If I am stressed, I break out. If I am tired, my skin gets dry and patchy. In order to make sure I have beautiful skin on the outside, I have to look at what I am putting into my body.

Happily, the beauty industry is also recognizing the need to care of our inner health in order to produce outer results. One product being recently touted is R.G. Skin Revitalizer (Red Gâc) is an oil extract from the tropical Gâc. It’s abundant in Beta-carotene, a carotenoid antioxidant which gives a natural boost to the immune system and aids your skin in cellular rejuvenation.

Gâc is a bright-red fruit found all over sub-tropical Asia, especially in Vietnam. Used as a nutritional supplement, it acts much like any of the other super fruits or super foods that are becoming increasingly more valued for their reparative properties.

When you take care of your self from the inside out, you will not only feel better – you will look better as well.

Here is Florida, we recently had a rash of wildfires that reached all of the way to Georgia that threatened a lot of homes and destroyed a lot of our forests and fields. That was absolutely nothing like the fires out in California right now, though. There are reportedly half a million people who have evacuated their homes. I cannot even imagine the widespread concern and panic. A full 1300 homes have been absolutely destroyed, burned the ground.

Fires out on the southern California coast happen each and every year. People know that they are making their homes in risky locations. People rebuild. There is always the looming risk that one year, the fire will visit your home. I imagine that there most be an amazing amount of appeal for living in the area if people keep coming back, keep building. Take the risk.

It is no different than when people build and rebuild on flood plains or on our hurricane coasts. You become so attached to the area or to your hometown or to just owning a home on the Gulf or the Ocean that you push to the back of your mind the idea that your home could be gone in a wink.

I see the appeal, but my own sense of risk taking diminishes a little more every year. I see more and more value in living when the possibility of a natural disaster coming near me is as low as possible.

The carriage light out by the front door needs replaced. I realized that as I was coming in tonight. Sometimes there are just things you look at day in and day out to the point where you are not really even seeing them anymore. Today something made me take a second look, so I added a new carriage lamp to my house shopping list. The shutters and the wood blinds for the back room are already on there. The list just has the little things I can buy and replace or install on my own, without hiring someone or making my brother-in-law come down and donate slave labor.

I saw that the Smithsonian Institution commissioned a whole line of fixtures by kichler lighting and since I am absolutely into quality reproductions, I decided to take a look at the collection. Of course, growing up in DC and spending countless weekends wander the Smithsonian museums means that anything endorsed by them makes me stop and take notice. I love our nation’s heritage and adding little touches to the house that sing the praises of days gone by is right up my alley. Little by little, this place is coming together.